Figure 8 puffer died mysteriously, can someone help me understand?

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Puffer8noobie
Puffer Fry
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:36 pm
Location (country): Canada

Figure 8 puffer died mysteriously, can someone help me understand?

Post by Puffer8noobie »

Hello Everyone,

Can I get some opinions on why my figure 8 puffer died? I bought him from the local fish store maybe 3 weeks ago and he was pretty healthy.

Here's the info I believe could be useful:
- I was feeding him mysis shrimp almost every day, and here and there I would skip a day to give him a break
- He was eating fine and seemed energetic, was interacting well with the other fishes, the only fish that sometimes gave him a bit of a chase was my red tail but he hides most of the time and isn't really aggro, I noticed they mostly ignored each other
- He was also friendly with the shrimps and my tetras
- He was in brackish water at the store, but I don't have brackish water setup at my house, so I acclimated him over 6 hours with the drip method, he seemed ok from the very first day
- Water temp is around 24c-26c
- I do water changes once a week mostly
- All my other fish are healthy / normal habits

Then the issues started happening around 3 days ago:
- Loss of appetite
- Started being lethargic and I noticed him kinda hiding and hanging out in the bottom of the tank
- I tried feeding him a couple times but would completely ignore food
- I even went after getting some snails and he wasn't interested either

I attached some pictures so you guys can see it, when I fed him he would eat until his belly was round.

My question:
- Do you guys think his teeth was overgrown because of the lack of hard foods for the first 2 weeks? (I only got snails for him a couple days ago but he was already acting weird at that point)
- Was it most likely a parasite?
- Any other ideas?


I'm really bummed out because he was the star of the tank, I was so happy when I saw him acclimate nicely at first :/

Any ideas would be appreciated, I'd like to try again in the future but only if I can get to the bottom of this.

Thank you
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Figure 8 puffer died mysteriously, can someone help me understand?

Post by Pufferpunk »

Sorry it took me so long to respond I was having trouble with my account.
2 weeks isn't long enough for the teeth to grow long unless they came that way.
What tank mates are in there?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
Crococlaire
Puffer Fry
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Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2023 8:49 pm
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Re: Figure 8 puffer died mysteriously, can someone help me understand?

Post by Crococlaire »

I would say it could be parasitic. Or fungal. It’s hard to know without a necropsy.
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